What Open Standards means ?

A lot of debates nowadays for a common definition of Open Standards (IGF, EC, etc).

Can W3C/ERCIM and ETSI agree on some principles ?

• Transparent process
• Open participation
• Technical Consensus
• Running code
• Free and Persistent Specification
• IPR Policy, in relation to Open Source in particular

Transparency

• due process is public (e.g. W3C Process, ETSI)
• all technical discussions are archived online (e.g. HTML)
• transparency is different than confidentiality
• all technical meetings are minuted are referencable in decision making
• if you have nothing to do with the decision, it doesn't have to be transparent to you.
• reality: transparency is subjective

Open Participation

• anybody can participate
• and everybody does: multi-stakeholder: industry, individual, public, government bodies, academia, on a worldwide scale
• They are suitable for those situations where dialogue is possible, where listening, reconciling interests, and integrating views into joint solution strategies seems appropriate and within reach.

Open Participation for individuals

• W3C WGs decide on their openess level for their live discussions (e.g. HTML, WAI groups are open)
• Each WG has an obligation of periodic public review/reply (at all stages)
• Non member "Invited Experts" are always welcome.
• This is also a guarantee of transparency.

Technical Consensus

• consensus defined in the process
• guaranteed fairness
• neutral hosting of the organization
• equal weight for each participant
• no formal voting, everybody has to convert everybody

Testing

• testing for relevance, e.g. analysis of the needs, including requirements phase, e.g. accessibility, multi-linguism
• testing for relevance once the specs is finished: running code, interop, validation, implementation
• prevalence of end-user tools (e.g. HTML validator.w3.org)
• online errata maintenance, persistent URL

IPR

• Tim Berners-Lee designed and implemented a free Web, both Open Source and Open Standard compliant at once (HTTP, HTML, URL, first server, first browser).
• W3C promotes the development of Web standards implemented by Open Source, and encourage product competition as well.
• Our tool for that purpose: the W3C Patent Policy (since 2003), which addresses more than just royalties issues (e.g. RF vs. RAND)